Within a farm there are also a number of administrative matters that need to be carried out. Among these tasks is the figure of the field notebook. A must-have when it comes to keeping your records.
What is a field notebook?
A field notebook, also known as a field book, farm notebook or phytosanitary notebook, is the document used to keep a record of the phytosanitary treatments carried out on a farm.
Is it mandatory?
The field notebook is mandatory. The Royal Decree 1311/2012 or Sustainable Use of Phytosanitary Products Act made it compulsory to carry out this registration from 1 January 2013 .
It is important to comply with this obligation, as they can ask you for the field notebook at any time, without prior notice, to ensure that the conditions that determine the granting of CAP aid are being fulfilled. If these conditions are not met or the field notebook is not being carried out correctly, CAP subsidies may be refused.
Purpose of the field notebook
In addition to helping the authorities to to verify that the regulations concerning plant protection products are being complied with and to be an indispensable element for the granting of CAP aid, the field notebook facilitates the task of recording the treatments applied to each farm.
In this way, it is ensured that the use of phytosanitary products is rational and safe for the environment and for people’s health.
What should a field notebook contain?
The information to be collected in the field notebook is divided into several parts:
- The first part contains general information about the farm and the people in charge of managing it.
- A second part collects the data of each plot, which includes the SIGPAC references and agronomic data.
- Finally, information on the phytosanitary treatments applied to each plot is collected.
Field notebooks should be kept for a minimum of three years, either on paper or digitally.
At Cedesa we have
agricultural software solutions
to collect all this information simplifying to the maximum the management. This way, the process will be much more streamlined and convenient, and you won’t have to worry about data loss.
